After the wave: Elderly couple rebuilds in memory of a brother

The msnbc.com team continues their work reporting on the recovery in Japan. On their way to report another story, the team spotted a man with a wheelbarrow in front of a partially destroyed home in rural Kesennuma. They stopped and met Teruo and Katsuko Kano.

The 69-year-old Katsuko and her 76-year-old husband have another aim in rebuilding the two-story home in their wrecked and deserted community: saving the last home built by her brother, a carpenter.

Kyle Drubek / for msnbc.com

Teruo Kano slowly pushes washed up brush and roots through his garden and past cars gathered from the surrounding rice fields.

"This is the last work of his, so I have to hang onto this house," she said, noting that his home and another one he had built washed away in the tsunami. "For the sake of my brother, I must rebuild."